PH ‘most improved’ in integrity ranking

The Philippines emerged as the most improved country in a survey of corruption and integrity perceptions, according to the latest report of international think tank Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. (PERC).

Countries and territories with higher per-capita incomes registered the following scores: South Korea at 6.17 points, Macau at 6.15, Taiwan at 6.08, United States at 4.61, Hong Kong at 3.4, Japan at 3.0, Australia at 2.67, and Singapore at 1.67.

The think tank credited the country’s encouraging performance in the latest annual survey largely to the “clean” image that the current administration brought to public governance.

“The Philippines was the only country we surveyed where there was an improvement of more than 5 percent [in the score]. This is an example of how leadership really can make a difference,” it said.

‘Virtuous cycle’

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima welcomed the result of the survey saying: “Over the past six years, we have registered marked improvements across every significant indicator and international ranking. It’s clear as day: President Aquino’s good governance agenda has driven up this virtuous cycle.”

“With the wind at our backs, we ought to double down on rooting out corruption—the better to optimize our public resources to invest in our people,” Purisima added.

Meanwhile, the Investor Relations Office (IRO) said improvement in the Philippines’ score and rank in PERC’s Asian Intelligence survey is positive for the country’s credit ratings.

This is because results of this survey are used as inputs to the Word Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs), which in turn are used by credit rating agencies in assessing creditworthiness of economies, the IRO explained.

There were at least 100 respondents per country in PERC’s Asian Intelligence survey, except for Macau and Cambodia where there were 89 and 85 respondents, respectively.